


I Am Your Master!

by AnathemaAuthoress, DevilishDaddy



Category: Kuroshitsuji | Black Butler
Genre: AU, Demon Sex, F/M, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Master/Servant, Other, Plot, Prose Heavy Writing Style, Punishment, Slow Burn, Spoilers, Tags May Change
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-09-28
Updated: 2018-09-28
Packaged: 2019-07-18 18:35:33
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,318
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16124360
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnathemaAuthoress/pseuds/AnathemaAuthoress, https://archiveofourown.org/users/DevilishDaddy/pseuds/DevilishDaddy
Summary: It's not easy being the head of the Phantomhive family. The position comes with a lot of dangerous and woeful responsibilities. It's a good thing Earl Ciel has his trusted butler, Sebastian Michaelis, to obey his every order.





	I Am Your Master!

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome to AA's and DD's first published Black Butler collaboration! This is technically a roleplay written in novel format between the two of us, so the roles in the cast have been split. 
> 
> **CAST:**  
>  AA controls Sebastian Michaelis, Finnian, Mei-ren, Elizabeth Ethel Cordelia Midford (Lizzie), Snake, and William T. Spears.
> 
> DD controls Ciel Phantomhive, Bard (Baldroy), Grell Sutcliff, Ronald Knox, and Undertaker.
> 
> Other characters will be added to this list as they are incorporated into the story. Some characters, like Tanaka, are up in the air and are universally controlled as needed. 
> 
> **DISCLAIMER** :  
> From DD: This story takes place after the events of the Book of the Atlantic movie, but does not strictly follow any one specific canon. We're just having fun and going to do what we want, but it will build off from that point in the anime and will mature naturally into its own beast. Expect to see some references to the manga as well, but don't stress on the details. We won't. Haha!

“It was so real.” The young lord spoke in a low and even tone. His voice carried the weight of the memory, too vivid to be merely a dream. Dreams, after all, faded. They were easily washed away, still ponds disrupted simply by the introduction of the smallest pebble. The nightmare had been something more lasting, and as the boy earl recounted the images, he fought to keep his hands steady in his lap. “The manor was perfectly detailed, accurate down to the engravings on banister, the texture strokes on the portraits in the hall. There was nothing to warn me of the deception. I believed I was awake.”

Ciel Phantomhive, the boy named for the sake of someone and something lost a lifetime ago, gripped the thick white fabric of his comforter. The blanket was warm, a needed comfort in the cool room. Winter had come to England, and even the embers in the fireplace couldn’t pull the cold from his prickled flesh. 

He would never have told his butler about the nightmare. He doubted greatly that the demon cared to hear about such drivel as his master’s dreams, but it had been a reoccurring issue and Ciel hoped that confessing his visions might quell them. Fifteen was one too many nights disturbed for justification.

So there Ciel was, having woke screaming in bed—honestly, not  _ such  _ an unusual event—and unable to fall back to sleep. Sebastian Michaelis, the adroit and handsome Phantomhive lead butler, stood near the master’s bed. A three point candelabra rested on the table, soft firelight illuminating the butler’s right side and Ciel’s distant stare. Sebastian was silent and wore a calm and thoughtful expression as he gazed down at his shaken lord.

“They were there, scattered across the foyer floor like toys a child left out.” Ciel didn’t want Sebastian to ask, so he clutched the blanket a little tighter and continued quickly. “Mei-Ren was lying on the bottom steps. Bardroy, leaned against the base of the banister. And Finnian….” 

Ciel closed his eyes. He could see everything too clearly, almost like standing at the head of the stairs again looking down at the horror. What he didn’t say, he recalled in-depth. 

Mei-Ren’s maid’s uniform had been torn along the back, as though she had been attacked by a large, clawed animal. The ties of her white apron had been sliced apart, and the material had turned dark from the wounds in her flesh. She was still, breathless, face down and caught on the steps in a way that suggested she must have slid a short ways first. Her head was half hidden, tucked down in an unnatural manner towards her bosom. 

From underneath her ran a silent river as thick as it was red. The streams had pooled out around her body and had spilled over the edges of the last three steps. The rest had collected at the bottom of the stairs, staining the carpet like a spilled bottle of dark wine. Ciel remembered that each time he noticed her, he always thought that she had simply fallen, and that her blood was, in fact, just the results of another bottle wasted on the klutz. However, it always became evident that things were much darker. 

Not far from her body rested her glasses, frames bent out of shape and lenses busted. The wire was soaked in darkest crimson, but the source of that puddle was the fault of the blond chef, who sat against the banister’s base—as Ciel had said. Bard’s body had been slumped forward, his legs out straight. His chin was pressed into his chest, and he too was deathly still. His right arm always struck Ciel as  _ wrong _ , somehow, but it wasn’t until he dared a closer look that he realized that was because it was pulled from the socket and twisted unnaturally around and around. Between the broken limb and the gashes lining the man’s chest, it was clear that the cook had been attacked by something more ruthless than a bear, something more sadistic. 

Then, as the boy descended the stairs in his dreams, the same thing always came next. Around the corner, Ciel found Finnian. The gardener's beautiful smile was stolen from the world by an unimaginable force, something powerful enough to put the superhuman into the ground, to shatter the boy’s nearly unbreakable skull. Finnian’s decapitated body rested in a crater in the foyer’s polished flooring, the hole lined with a thin puddle of vital fluid from the servant’s opened neck. 

Ciel forced his left eye open, desperate to see something other than the gruesome scene. He was, however, careful not to allow his right eye the same permission, keeping his contract concealed behind his tired, bruised-looking lids and long lashes. 

The boy glared at the last button on his butler’s coat. He didn’t like feeling weak or childish, especially not in front of Sebastian. Complaining about a nightmare wherein he happened to find three servants departed was not something that he thought should warrant so much discomfort, but he was more worried that Sebastian might say something about the matter now that it was out in the open. More still, he feared Sebastian, being the monster he was, might be able to read his thoughts or sense the unrest the nightmare caused in him. 

He decided to continue his explanation, determined to get it out of his system and then never think about the horrible ordeal again. “He was lying on the floor,” he said briefly. “They were all dead. Attacked by someone, or something. I call to you but you don’t come. I try the front door, but it is locked and I can not get it open. Then I hear thunder, and I only notice then that it is storming outside.” In Ciel’s mind, the events are much more thorough, but he believed he was saying enough to relieve his burdened mind. “Then there was lighting, and I heard a man laughing. At first, I thought it was you.” Saying nothing of his cruel expectations in the dream. “But then I look up to the top of the stairs, and the man I see is a stranger, cloaked in shadows. I can only see his silhouette as he laughs so hard he shakes, and his eyes-” 

Ciel repressed a shudder. The man’s eyes were always the same, glowing like a devil’s but pure white. They gave the boy the impression of lightning, but he didn’t say as much. He also didn’t say that he felt like they could see him, through his dream self and into the very soul of his sleeping body outside the nightmare. After all, it was a night terror, nothing more, and the feeling of unease always settled after he was awake and his chores and studies took his mind off of things. It wasn’t until he was alone in his chamber, ready to sleep, that the memory of the dream came flooding back in and made his heart thrum in paranoia. 

“His eyes glow in the dark,” he added. “Making it clear he is not human.” 

That had done it, Ciel felt. The rough of things had been told, and he honestly felt a little foolish. The dream, when one broke it down, wasn’t so terrifying. The boy’s reality had been much crueler, and had left him with years of recurring nightmares far more gruesome and haunting than this latest addition. His plan had worked perfectly. Speaking on the topic had eased the feelings attached with the bad thoughts. 

“That’s all,” the earl said sternly. “Quite ridiculous, I know.” 

Ciel relaxed, sat back against his large pillows and let them cradle him. He stared up at the ceiling of his bed’s canopy and ran his thin fingers through his darkly-colored hair. Yes, he could rest easy again. He doubted the nightmare would return now. 

Still, he didn’t send Sebastian away just yet.

All the while, the butler had listened, alert but tentative to speak for fear of interruption. His eyes narrowed as he mulled over this information. Rather an odd dream for the master to have, though it beset the demon with no consideration of premonitions or predictions. The human mind could be such a wily thing, so quick to conjure up horrors to express even the most petty of machinations. 

The only bit of the slightest surprise to Sebastian was that the glowing eyed figure had not been him. Further it almost felt like a slight. What other demon, in the most broad of senses, could possibly take precedence over the literal one? Over the one who every night stood guard over the child’s bed harboring equal parts duty and demonic desire? Sebastian released a sigh to vent the very troubling bit of jealousy for so wanting to be the most ominous thing on the Phantomhive’s mind.

“My lord, that does sound quite troubling. However, I am inclined to remind you that no such creature could escape my notice. I hope that you might rest easier if only you may come to trust in that.” Asking the boy to trust was a loaded request and the demon very well knew it, but he also knew it was perhaps the only thing the lord could trust for certain.

Though even as he spoke, even as he pressed his fingers to his breast in sign of service, a wicked laugh haunted the demon too. One that had accompanied a rather painful cut through that very chest. Sebastian’s eyes tinted dark in recollection, but he allowed no further words be spoken. When next he met that blade he would splinter it in twain, no doubt, and no sense in troubling an already troubled child.

“Yes,” Ciel muttered. He thought to feign sleep until it really came, but something still urged him to keep his eyes focused on the shadows above. “I suppose it would have to be a rather nasty and cunning creature to make it inside these walls.” 

He wondered why he was still trying to convince himself. He knew that Sebastian was capable of tending to any intruder, and most trespassers wouldn’t make it past the yard. Not nowadays.

_ So why do I still feel so uneasy?  _

“Warm milk,” Ciel requested suddenly. He almost felt annoyed as he thought of it. Despite this, his request came out more sounding like a pout than something akin to irritation. “And honey.” 

Usually the butler had the late night remedy in tow, used to his little lord’s stirring jumpscares, but this one had either caught the man off guard, or he had rushed in to ensure there was no real threat. Either way, Ciel felt strongly that a cup of Sebastian’s milk would calm and aid his worried mind’s recovery. 

“Yes,” the butler said softly. Of course. The request alerted him well enough that lord’s mind was rattled, but coming down as it so managed. He dipped into a bow. “Anything else while I’m away?” Sebastian knew the boy would be skittish whilst the butler was away, and while at times that could be either amusing or annoying depending upon his mood, that night the tension was rather shared and Sebastian harbored little desire to exacerbate the situation. Being apart from the master tonight seemed unwise.

“No,” Ciel said firmly. Then, as if to reinforce his servant’s thinking, the boy added, “And do be quick about it. I don’t want to be left waiting all night.” 

The boy didn’t want to be left alone anymore than Sebastian wanted to leave him there, but that clinging need only made Ciel more sure that he needed a moment to gather his courage. 

He reminded himself,  _ There is no white-eyed demon looming in the shadows. That is preposterous, and a Phantomhive does not fear even that which exists. Control yourself! _

The earl made a brave face for Sebastian as the man prepared to leave. 

Sebastian granted his master  a moment more, but with nothing else forthcoming he rose and moved to the light. His fingers stilled just a breath from the candelabra, before recoiling entirely. He could dutifully find his way in the dark far better than the master could fair in it.

A sinister bit of the demon urged him to take it, to leave the cowering mortal to his pathetic trembling. On another night he may have. It was expected of him to carry the light, it would not be untoward, but Sebastian understood on developed instinct that the lord would prefer to have it. And so he left it. “Straight away, my lord.”

His motions were neither languid to taunt nor rushed to his fullest, or even meger, potential. He walked at a brisk pace and used his otherworldly eyes to make out the shapes of the halls, although he'd walked them enough to know them by carpet fiber or scent alone. 

He did the service of heating the milk with his fingertips against the pot. It was quicker and surely the lord would forgive him the indiscretion in favor of haste. He set it steaming upon a serving tray alongside the oft used night china–though that was not its official title it had become a nom de plume–and tossed on a tea biscuit for good measure. It was the round floral, sugary sort with a firm jam center. They were all the rage in London and the master took private joy in them, a fact which Sebastian had pridefully noted and applied with only the bassist of acknowledgement.

Meanwhile, back in the bedroom, Ciel had taken note of his butler’s courtesy. After he had been left alone, he had chosen to stare idly at the flickering light atop the nearest waxen rod. Fire, Ciel had learned, was a rather mysterious element. It had been such that its presence had marked many ends, both pleasant and traumatic, and several better beginnings and interesting details in between. 

Rather than the shadowy face of his nightmare monster, the boy fancied his memories of fire. The mansion’s predecessor and it’s destruction came to mind first, then the wild flames of that damned night when the sinner and demon had first shook hands. Then Ciel thought to the night of the great manor murder mystery, and he paused on the section of remembrance just before Sebastian had interrupted his half-sleep that first night, when he—the evening’s host—had found himself not only chained to a novelist he admired, but also found him weakening to the man’s kind words. He thought for a long moment about the good doctor, how he had so unconsciously moved his hand and placed it atop of Ciel’s head. How he had ruffled the earl’s hair as though he truly were one of the author’s younger brothers. 

_ At that moment _ , Ciel lemented.  _ He trusted my youth completely.  _

However, that belief had been cut down in its prime too. And the fire consumed the boy’s fleeting thoughts again. Black, hellish flames that terrified a creative man into inspiration and endless uncertainty. Then the golden flames that had engulfed a house of horrors, that devoured the flesh of countless children’s meat and bones, the event that had forced that entire ordeal that the kind doctor with gentle hands had been forced to bear witness to. It all started to mix and swirl together. That long evening on the Campania. Lizzie’s dance and the near endless barrage of living dead. 

A manic voice eerily similar to his own whispered its loud requests inside of Ciel’s head.

_ Burn. Burn it all. Burn away all the frights and nightmares until nothing more unpleasant than a scar remains! _

Such intrusive thoughts were brought to an abrupt end, powder brought to choke out the flames with a mere flick of the wrist. “Your milk, master.”

Sebastian set the tray on the nightstand as was customary and began to pour the warm bile into the saucer. He would never wrap his mind around the taste of it, this sugared and processed excrimatant that humans so thrived upon, despite their reluctance toward anything else of the kind. But so it was with all human delights. Sebastian had come to grasp flavor and body and decance and  _ bitter, salty, sweet. _ Yet he failed to palette such things with the ecstasy of gluttonous human tongues. So was the way of things, be pity or otherwise.

He delivered the cup to Phantomhive’s small hands and stood at attention as was expected of him.

As the boy washed his hurried thoughts away with the smooth liquid, he admired the temperature of the milk. It had been some time since he had to concern himself with testing such things, but a small part of him, the tiniest sliver most days, always rustled proudly from a job done perfectly by his most trusted help. At this point, however, his acceptance of a glass or meal was sufficient praise. Especially when there was nothing unusual about the service or request. 

Ciel finished a third of his cup before his eyes caught sight of the delicacy resting on a small plate. His brows lifted and his open eye grew more visible as his excitement showed. The childish expression came with a sweeter tone, one of a thoroughly distracted master much more like a curious kitten than a spoiled gosling. 

“What have you brought me?” the boy inquired in an usually cute manner. It was clear he suspected, but Sebastian had never prepared him such a treat, and he certainly hadn’t made a habit of spoiling him at night. Not after Tanaka’s return and the new lead butler took notes from his predecessor. 

Sebastian sighed, deep, audible,  _ woe-begotten. _ “Though I am loathe to have you up all hours of the night from sugar stimulation, it struck me that it may bring some pleasantness to this rather sour night. Though I assure you, this is a special occasion and not one to become expectant of or accustomed to.” Even as he spoke, he plucked the plate from the tray with one gloved hand and smoothly held it out to the lord. “I fear though, looking at you now, that it might bring more restlessness to your sleep.” His brows wove as if considering this, perhaps thinking better of it, but he did not pull the plate away. “I suppose there is nothing for it. Worse for a butler to second guess himself than to go along on a whim.”

“I’d rather you not make an ordeal out of it,” Ciel said in a scolding tone. Otherwise, he seemed content. He took the plate and spent the next few moments enjoying his treat. Much unlike himself, he ended up handing back an empty plate and an empty cup to Sebastian. More often than not, the child earl found that there was always less room in his stomach than his eyes suggested. 

Without another fuss, Ciel nestled down into his covers and pillows. His eye was heavy with sleep and he didn’t dare reconsider the sandman’s invitation. Then, just like that, and with Sebastian and the candlelight still at his side, the boy drifted off to slumberland at last. 

Though it had not been requested of him, and though any other night it would have been a burden on his tasks, Sebastian remained. His eyes drifted to the drawn curtains over the master’s window and he saw without seeing into an endless night. Or it seemed endless as much as the darkness of any other, yet with a dread that hung heavy in the autumn air. 

“Sleep well, my master,” Sebastian whispered, even though the human was beyond words in that most mystic of realms. “I do hope your fears are unfounded, although–“ He could not help the sly grin that found his features. “How very interesting it will be if they are not.”


End file.
